So unless something changes and everyone backs out, I’m playing a Dwarf Cleric. The rest of my team consists of a Monk, Enchanter, and Paladin. If you’re wanting to join us in 3 weeks, be sure to make yourself known in our Discord.

We’re pretty much casuals. Some of us are uber casuals with young kids and only play at night while others are casual but will play throughout the day. We’re not hardcore. We won’t be power-leveling like the pros — meaning we won’t be level 50 in less than a week. We won’t be raiding. Right from the start our plan is clear that unless we stumble bassackward into a raid, we won’t be aspiring to do any. I don’t even know if we’re forming a guild. We’re grouping and showing up to the fun.

Experience is slower than Ragefire/ Lockjaw / Agnarr and closer to Phinigel post-exp boost. Translation: Decently slow but not painful

Raids are instanced

One character per physical computer

Now to answer the question many of you have already asked...

I don't know.

I'm debating.

I'd say I'm evenly split 50/50 on whether or not I will play on Coirnav. If I do, I'm playing a Cleric. But I don't know if I have it in me to grind in Unrest and Guk again through the pre-Kunark era. Perhaps not this soon.

I received several emails and DM's on Discord asking me what I think about Rift's upcoming 'Prime' server. The "Rift Prime" server will be a subscription only server where content from the past seven years is released periodically to the players. It's essentially the EQ progression server model.

My thoughts? Obviously I'm a huge proponent of the subscription model. There's no doubt in my mind that it is the superior model in every way. Subscriptions make for better games.

I didn't expect to see this coming out of Blizzcon, but I did expect to see it eventually: Blizzard is creating a classic World of Warcraft server/experience.

"I am pleased and also a little bit nervous to announce the development of a Classic server option for World of Warcraft," said J. Allen Brack, Executive Producer of WoW.

Brack went on to say, "This is a larger endeavor than you might imagine, but we are committed to making an authentic Blizzard-quality Classic experience." We want to reproduce the game experience that we all enjoyed from the original classic WoW – not the actual launch experience. So please bear with us, it’s going to take some time, but it will happen."

Here's the welll-made trailer/announcement.

How Will WoW Classic Work?

There's absolutely no information, but I love to speculate.

I think this can go down a number of ways. Two of the more obvious ones being simply a new server (or 10) launch. That brings its own series of challenges given the client.

They could also launch a completely separate client for the classic experience and have it launched right off the Blizzard launcher. Possible.

They could also turn this completely upside down and make it an extension of your current server. You use the temporal discombobulator thingy and your character goes back in time. The experience becomes some uber cavern of time experience -- a lot less likely.

Assuming they launch new servers and a new client (my opinion the most likely), they have the choice of keeping the assets updated or truly rolling back the client and clock to the graphics and experience of vanilla days.

EverQuest, no stranger to the progression server / classic server experience, has been handled in multiple ways. The player-run server was literally the old assets and client. The official servers use the newer graphics and UI features in order to make it somewhat manageable for them.

No Thank You

Regardless of what Blizzard does, I think I'll pass. I played Vanilla for years. I server-first killed nearly every raid boss. I was the leader of three guilds (on three servers) to do it. I opened the gates of AQ. I was that no-life braindead raider who lost myself to the game. Never, ever, again.

There are people who enjoy that type of arduous 'challenge' -- though I strongly oppose the idea that any of it was difficult gameplay. It was difficult in that it took TIME, and it took PEOPLE.

Today's WoW is more accessible, but also more difficult to execute gameplay on the raids themselves (the ones that aren't public raids).

Where WoW is concerned, opposed to a game like EQ, I never felt the journey held much for me in Vanilla. It was always about reaching the destination. The reason a progression server or 'classic' experience works for me in EQ is that I enjoyed the journey and never reached or cared about reaching the end.

Let's see where Blizzard takes this classic experiment. I like their candor stating upfront that it's a challenge and not a small feat to accomplish.

EverQuest (Agnarr TLP) is still my #1 game right now. I’m currently leveling my Enchanter (named Keen) to 50 and making great progress. It’s kind of sad… I have two characters who both fell flat at level 46 because I couldn’t push to grind out minuscule exp while waiting to find groups. I swear this Enchanter will not only hit 50, but 60 too since Kunark is already out.

I’m really having fun duo’ing and playing with my friend (Cleric named Irezfor Tips). We duo’d our way to 18 pretty much by charming and killing yellows/reds. Pretty strong duo.

Both of us are bemoaning the fact that the developers killed out soloing in these eras. That’s a really ironic fact, too, since so much of the industry and player-base went solo-friendly. Even EQ eventually goes super solo friendly.

There’s just nothing good to solo on in the Classic/Kunark era. All of the solo spots were wiped. We really can’t figure out why, either. For some reason they lowered mob levels and thinned out areas that something like a Necromancer could solo for good exp.

EQ was always the game where you COULD solo and progress well. It gets a bad rap for being a classic ‘hardcore’ game, and with that people immediately assume “group only game” but that’s not how it was at all. I have more to say on that tomorrow.

We have big plans to hit 40+ this coming weekend. We’re hoping it’s the Labor Day holiday EXP weekend. Fingers crossed because I’d love to hit a level where I can go to Kunark content and start grouping.